The Great Gatsby By Nick Carraway

The American Dream is dead. This is the main theme in F. Scott Fitzgerald 's novel The Great Gatsby. In the novel Fitzgerald gives us a glimpse into the life of the high class during the roaring twenties through the eyes of a moralistic young man named Nick Carraway. It is through the narrator 's dealings with high society that readers are shown how modern values have transformed the American Dream 's pure ideals into a scheme for materialistic power and further, how the world of high society lacks any sense of morals or consequence. In order to support this message, Fitzgerald presents the original aspects of the American Dream along with its modern face to show that the once impervious dream is now lost forever to the American people.

[OPENING STATEMENT] The Great Gatsby does not clearly yield to either poem or prose causing it to be considered as a lyrical novel rather than the more common narrative. Poetic devices and techniques used by author F. Scott Fitzgerald are more commonly seen with poetry. Yet it is these techniques that give meaning to his work of fiction; how Fitzgerald states his ideas becomes more important than the ideas themselves. Poetic devices he uses are called litotes, which express a positive statement by using its opposite negatives. To say “the ice cream was not bad” would be an intentional understatement, when instead one could say the ice cream was “good.” Litotes are used for irony, which is “using words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.”1 Also commonly found throughout the novel, litotes are used for emphatic effect to benefit setting, plot, and character development.

In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, colors are one of the most important details in the book. Throughout the story Fitzgerald cleverly uses colors in order to focus on specific themes and characters. He wrote this book in a way where one can read it for pleasure, and where one could analyze it and truly appreciate the work that he has put into this book. Every color has a specific meaning which correlates with each of the characters. Specifically, gold represents wealth, high class, selfishness, and relationships; while white represents honesty, purity, innocence, and a symbol for surrendering.

The Great Gatsby entails of a story of a bright young man, Nick Carraway, who moved to New York City in search of a successful life in the bonds business, but becomes suffocated by the lifestyles of those in wealth and power at the time. As Nick settles himself in a new job and new city, in the only cottage among mansions on West and East Egg, he finds himself neighbor to a mysterious, wealthy man known for his extravagant parties and elusive persona. This neighbor, Jay Gatsby, emerges to be one of the main characters of the novel and the only person in all of New York that Nick can call a friend. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, encompasses the hollowness of the upper class as well as the deterioration of the “American Dream” within the plotline of the lives of Nick, Gatsby, and the Buchanan’s. Because of the themes Fitzgerald created, it prompts people, such as Bruccoli, to make the claim “The Great Gatsby does not proclaim the nobility of the human spirit; it is not politically correct; it does not reveal how to solve the problems of life; it delivers no fashionable or comforting messages. It is just a masterpiece.” While the Great Gatsby is a masterpiece, Bruccoli correctly examines the text in revealing no nobility of the human spirit, no solutions to the problems of life, and it is politically incorrect. However, despite the dismal themes, Fitzgerald does deliver fashionable/comforting messages to the audience. Bruccoli’s claim brings to light the

Killing people is morally wrong and injustice, but what if the killer believed that he was killing for a good purpose. That person would be considered a destructive angel, which is a type of archetype created by Carl Jung. In the great Gatsby different types of archetypes allow readers to see and understand the negative side of characters. Gatsby throughout the novel shows his archetypal lover role.Tom shows how he is the oppressor Daisy throughout the novel shows how she is the sexual temptress.

The 1920s was a notorious decade in which patriarchal ideas drove the society while impacting the values of individuals across America. With limited rights for women, feminist ideas were rare, an idea that spread across-country. However, there was a new image of females emerging in the ‘20s, being the image of the flapper, someone who was free to go out and enjoy nightlife as they wished. The division in social structure was that of men being at the pinnacle of society, while women were expected to be the “perfect” wife. In his novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of a Long Island man, Nick Carraway, who is also the narrator, and his interactions with an extremely wealthy man, Jay Gatsby, who has aspirations to

The American Dream, a concept coined at a time when wealth, power, and prosperity was the ultimate goal. In, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald illustrates a situation where the dream in the end turns into a complete nightmare. Jay Gatsby’s love of Daisy contributed to his hunger for a wealthy lifestyle, which finally brings Gatsby to his failure.

In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s unique ability to change his identity at will to achieve supremacy threatens the existences of other individuals he encounters and ultimately results in his own unhappiness because of his obsession with his goal.

Jordan Baker informs Nick Carraway that Jay Gatsby is still in love with Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby and Daisy were in a relationship before she was married to Tom Buchanan, which eventually had to end when Gatsby went off to war. Half a decade later, Gatsby has situated himself in West Egg to be close to Daisy. Jordan, acting as a messenger, tells Nick that Gatsby would like him to invite Daisy over for tea, where Gatsby would then surprise and join them. Nick is baffled that Gatsby would go to the trouble of throwing extraneous parties for the past five years, holding onto the sliver of hope that Daisy may one day attend one.

Nothing is free. In order to gain anything, one must give something up. When a person decides to chase a desire at all costs, those costs can become high. In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and Gatsby strive to reach their desires (stability, mistresses, and Daisy of the past, respectively), and in the process risk to lose a part of their of happiness.

Life is not always what it seems, but is constantly fooled by metaphorical masks people wear. The appearance of many of the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby differs greatly from their actual selves. The use of illusion in the novel is used effectively to portray the nature of people in the 1920 's, and the “artificial” life that is lived in this modern age. There are many incidences in which the appearance of characters is far different than what lurks inside them. Several of these incidences are shown in the appearances of Gatsby himself, Daisy Buchanan, and Gatsby’s true love for Daisy. Gatsby goes through a dramatic transformation from his old self to his new self, even changing his name and buying a faux mansion in

When corruption is thought of one could often think of a fat, greedy old man taking the wealth of citizens. However, that is not the only form of corruption. Many forms of corrupt individuals are prevalent throughout the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Corruption is shown through the characters as they pursue their version of the American Dream. However, the pursuit of the American Dream does not entail happiness, for the needs of the corrupt can never be fulfilled.

Society tends to harbor an inherent and often unavoidable nature that unfairly favors those who are wealthy yet corrupt, and forces those who are moral and noble to suffer. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald comments on this concept with the characters Tom and Gatsby. By comparing and contrasting Tom and Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald develops his critique of the class structure of 1920s America that allows corrupt characters to thrive while punishing sympathetic characters for striving for their dreams.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler..” (not so sure this quotation really fits; it seems to be talking about thoughts and feelings, but your essay focuses on feelings versus materialism/ light and dark. . .try to find a quotation that captures that) In Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a wealthy young Jay Gatsby attempts to recapture the attention of Daisy Buchanan, the married, upper-class woman who he previously had a relationship with. The protagonist, Jay Gatsby, is first portrayed as a wealthy, powerful man who throws extravagant parties and comes from great money; however, as the novel progresses, Gatsby’s true nature, purpose, and background come to light as he is illustrated as a man who accumulates his wealth for the foolish purpose of obtaining a woman’s love. The narrator, Nick Carraway, is first introduced as an older man reflecting on his youth when he lived in New York, where he first started working, visiting his cousin Daisy, and living next door to the mysterious Jay Gatsby. Although Nick helps rekindle the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy, as the two grow closer, other things begin to fall apart. In the end, Daisy runs over Myrtle in a hit and run, a crime for which Gatsby is blamed and murdered. After Gatsby is killed, Nick holds a memorial which brings no audience, making quite clear the extent of selfishness the upper class of New York City had. In order to further

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald starts out by introducing the narrator, Nick Carraway, who has just recently moved to West Egg. Nick’s cousin Daisy, who is married to the wealthy Tom Buchanan, happens to live across the island on East Egg. Next door to Carraway lives Jay Gatsby, the mysterious man who throws extravagant parties each week exhibiting extreme hospitality to his numerous guests.